Luke F-35s Reach 1K Hours

Pilots from the 61st Fighter Squadron at Luke AFB, Arizona, flew the squadron’s 1,000th F-35 training sortie on 31 March 2015. The first F-35A arrived at Luke on 10 March 2014 and recorded the 1,000 sorties milestone just a little more than a year later. That's the fastest time to 1,000 F-35 sorties so far for any US military flying squadron. The first official class of student pilots is scheduled to begin at the Academic Training Center, a 145,000-square-foot two story state-of-the-art training center, in May 2015. There are currently twenty F-35As assigned at Luke, two of which belong to the Royal Australian Air Force, an F-35 pilot training partner nation.